CHORUS: O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say,
Then wave your hand, to signify as much.

ALCMAEON: I journeyed hither a Boetian road.
CHORUS: Sailing on horseback, or with feet for oars?
ALCMAEON: Plying with speed my partnership of legs.
CHORUS: Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus?
ALCMAEON: Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes.
CHORUS: To learn your name would not displease me much.
ALCMAEON: Not all that men desire do they obtain.
CHORUS: Might I then hear at what thy presence shoots.
ALCMAEON: A shepherd's questioned mouth informed me that--
CHORUS: What? for I know not yet what you will say.
ALCMAEON: Nor will you ever, if you interrupt.
CHORUS: Proceed, and I will hold my speechless tongue.
ALCMAEON: This house was Eriphyle's, no one else's.
CHORUS: Nor did he shame his throat with shameful lies.
ALCMAEON: May I then enter, passing through the door?
CHORUS: Go chase into the house a lucky foot.
And, O my son, be, on the one hand, good,
And do not, on the other hand, be bad;
For that is much the safest plan.
ALCMAEON: I go into the house with heels and speed.

CHORUS

Strophe

In speculation
I would not willingly acquire a name
For ill-digested thought;
But after pondering much
To this conclusion I at last have come:
LIFE IS UNCERTAIN.
This truth I have written deep
In my reflective midriff
On tablets not of wax,
Nor with a pen did I inscribe it there,
For many reasons: LIFE, I say, IS NOT
A STRANGER TO UNCERTAINTY.
Not from the flight of omen-yelling fowls
This fact did I discover,
Nor did the Delphine tripod bark it out,
Nor yet Dodona.
Its native ingunuity sufficed
My self-taught diaphragm.

Antistrophe

Why should I mention
The Inachean daughter, loved of Zeus?
Her whom of old the gods,
More provident than kind,
Provided with four hoofs, two horns, one tail,
A gift not asked for,
And sent her forth to learn
The unfamiliar science
Of how to chew the cud.
She therefore, all about the Argive fields,
Went cropping pale green grass and nettle-tops,
Nor did they disagree with her.
But yet, howe'er nutritious, such repasts
I do not hanker after:
Never may Cypris for her seat select
My dappled liver!
Why should I mention Io? Why indeed?
I have no notion why.

Epode

But now does my boding heart,
Unhired, unaccompanied, sing
A strain not meet for the dance.
Yes even the palace appears
To my yoke of circular eyes
(The right, nor omit I the left)
Like a slaughterhouse, so to speak,
Garnished with woolly deaths
And many sphipwrecks of cows.
I therefore in a Cissian strain lament:
And to the rapid
Loud, linen-tattering thumps upon my chest
Resounds in concert
The battering of my unlucky head.

ERIPHYLE (within): O, I am smitten with a hatchet's jaw;
And that in deed and not in word alone.
CHORUS: I thought I heard a sound within the house
Unlike the voice of one that jumps for joy.
ERIPHYLE: He splits my skull, not in a friendly way,
Once more: he purposes to **** me dead.
CHORUS: I would not be reputed rash, but yet
I doubt if all be gay within the house.
ERIPHYLE: O! O! another stroke! that makes the third.
He stabs me to the heart against my wish.
CHORUS: If that be so, thy state of health is poor;
But thine arithmetic is quite correct.

Narcissus in chains
Head hung in shame
Where once was beauty
Now nothing remains
No other to blame
Self-bound and tamed
The pitiful, once proud
Narcissus in chains

A flower in bloom
Eventually wilts
Bright leaves growing dim
As essence is spilt
Lifeblood grows weak
Decrepit and stained
All pretty things fade
As the earth lays claim
Broken and twisted
Like narcissus in chains

Reflected in a pool
An image shows true
Until shattered and torn
By a rock falling through
Rippling, tattering
Illusion no more
Cracked and fragmented
As one's inner core
And what's left on shore
Now forever is changed
Who made you so
Oh, narcissus in chains

Time steals beauty
And flowers, they rot
Clear pools dry up
Their waters forgot
As things fall to change
One still remains:
The pitiful, once proud
Narcissus in chains

(descent)
Hindered by progress, or the idea of progress:
evolution-in-waiting bellows me to hide,
tattering becomes ruination.

Animism creeps,
not-yet hands pushing at dim velvet.
Peeping one-eyed through the past
where had borne such potent promise
immutability lain intact
flumped into snowy thickness
and thrown hard against Georgian glass.

Here comes the stealth of unillumination
thankfully blanketing
they were tied at the hips
and neck,
then wrapped as old mirrors.

That door went nowhere
it always does
those Victorians, forever meddling,
will folly themselves into any trouble.

(resurrection)
You haven’t changed one bit!
I say to myself,
showing you their brand new niceness
***** as copper pans.
Go on, spit in my fire
the hiss is the thing that’s real.

with each gust of gloom
transparent emotions flow
a whistling tender breeze
lingering a lonely rhythm

realigning clouds of smog  
hovering tattering trees
leaving behind a silhouette
absorbing shadows of sorrow

all alone a locked heart
searching for unknown hope
humming the bitter dreams
of a darkened and lost soul

Timing is everything;
Even the weather,
Comes into play.
A cold and rainy
Late-Sunday afternoon
Is no time to end
A love relationship:
To say goodbye for
A very long time; nor,
To remember someone
Crying as you walk away.
Glistening, dark-colored umbrellas
Reflect sad, gray clouds
Drifting so slowly by.
Rain drops mask the tears:
The sighs and sobs of
Gloom weighed heavily by
An incessant, pervasive rain--
Pit, pat, pattering on
Tin roofs; or, plat, plop, plopping on
Foggy windows; or
***, tat, tattering
On walls already swollen
With grief and misery.
Yes, timing is everything!
Even the weather comes
Into play when you finally
Have to say to someone
“Goodbye”, forever, and,
“I do not love you anymore.”

Eyes slam shut tight, french doors with frosted glass only the harsh lights peer through thin eye lids, images disappear behind the blurred misconceptions
I'm in love with the concept of love but fearful of rejection
scared she will have keen senses, ample for the detection
of a life without direction
I slam these eyes shut praying she won't catch the hint of whiskey on my teeth chattering
I am a stones throw from entertaining but a star's trip from flattering
As my fidgeting nervous hands are tearing and tattering
the napkins on the table, fingers delicately dance along the coffee creamers racing for the spoon
pretending she reminds me of anyone but you
but her eyes stare at me the way yours do
she laughs at every pointless joke I make too
her lips curl so perfectly over the coffee mug, pink and full of life, vibrant and smooth
I'm a hopeless, lost soul
aching for control
of emotions that know no master, strings never attached allowing me to pull the puppet to it's proper place
I know it's written across my face
letters of your name mix around and re-arrange
eyes slammed shut because the ache of knowing she's just rushing through my heart's void, a winter's draft through a cracked window pane
Leaves me with a void, where your marks will always remain

It was raining today at a town in Nevada, the odd thing about this town was that it never got cold rain, this rain seemed to come directly from the tropics. No one wore coats on this day, and no one held umbrellas to cover them from the rain. The warmth of this rain brought excitement to this small town like they never see before that.  This was a special day in the High School of this small town, but no one felt it, only a few will ever understand why today in the warm rain is such a special day. Two people feelings come together today, and it will be one of the most blossoming relationships to ever occur on this earth. This couple will go on to help thousands of Struggling Families and tattering couples get back on track, but this story is not about their accomplishments, but of their feelings, thoughts, and strong love for each other at an early age.
This young, hard working, and quiet boy’s name is Michael, and he hasn’t found where he belongs in this school yet. He has friends who he eats lunch with, but he is barely part of their life. It seems to him, that he is literally invisible to his peers, his elders, and anyone in between. All this never really bothered him because he never knew what feelings were as a friend or as a person in general. In fact when she started thinking continuously about one girl, he did not understand at all why he was doing such an odd thing. He was a good boy, he knew what school was about and the only real woman he’s come close to is his mother. He shouldn’t be having these feelings. Even though it made no sense, he still thought what color she likes, if she wanted roses or lilies, and all the questions needed to know to make the move without making a fool out himself. He didn’t understand love and really was worried for his health.  On this special day, under the warm rain, he never knew what would happen, nor did he feel it, but it did happen, and it changed his life. Leaving his English class, he stepped into the heated rain started heading towards his Algebra class continually thinking about this girl he sees every day, and will see her in a few moments. There was a bit of a clearing where the lockers were settled, and he was starting to walk by her just to see her before he went to the next class. As he started to walk by, she closed her locker, and then was shoved out of the crowd trying to get to the lockers. She was shoved straight into Michaels arms. His books dropped and she replaced it all. She stood in his arms and he was speechless. She was a bit disoriented, and as she looked up, her hair flowed down her face. She looked into his dark green eyes drenched in passion staring at her secret love, and they both felt so much passion never felt before. She was saying nothing to him, just starting into his eyes. Somewhere in Michael’s mind, it kept telling him it was dream. The world around him meant nothing at all. People walked by both of them like they were statues. They couldn’t move at all, and they never did. Finally, the girl shocked out of this beautiful trance, and realized what was happening. She started apologizing and handing his book to him. After Michael got all his books, still speechless, gave a small nod. She said “My names Charlotte” and he realized he has never even known her name. Michael finally did something  “Michael” was all he could stutter. She gave the most beautiful  smile he has ever seen.

I am the ice sweating in the
midst of a surreal desert.
I rise as a wave in unbelievable
imagination of ravished lunatic.
A jingled chortle
of thundering sky,
a contemplating flower under bodhgay.
I am a mere rogue
tattering at the flowing time
in the ruined temple of life-
hearing the obscene truths sung by cracked skulls.
I sprout as a black cat in darkness
letting the reality to shudder
transcendentalising fantasy.
Sowing soul in the unlimited land of poetry
i water my emotion.
I am the silence of swaying lamp
the inevitable stream of its resonating music.
The songs sung by a million stars
the warm glow puffed by the moon
fills my soul with fluid of purity.
I am a pillar in a church
burnt by a ranting fire
punched by a vehement wind.
I vanish in the fugitive mist
varnish the blazing creature in oppressed slave heart.
I am the space between the doubtfully raised hand
of a poets pen tip,
i am his colorful idea
that has power to devastate the earth.
I howl with dogs
on my knees
in the streets letting everyone to watch my insanity
with uppity sarcasm, superciliously and pitying my senses.
I am a shrilly shriek articulated involuntarily
by a labor carrying 100KG weight,
cruelty of giggling pain in his heart.
I am the suppressed tear
screaming in a lovers eye
trembling tone
of last heart beat.
I am the idea of uncertainty  
in Heisenberg's theory
i am that tone of Einstein's piano
which tugged the nerve
that can pronounce E=mc2.
A myriad universes flow in me
as i am smaller than an electron.
I am unbelievable
irrevocable
i am poet.

Let my ferocity, and passion eloquently paint the pictures in my own regrets, tattering the canvas of my own flesh.

Let the foul, and the sweet, mesh together into brilliant concepts caught from the thinning air that only you can breathe.

Let me inhale deeply, savoring every contaminant, every exacerbation, and every nothing that means everything to you.

Let me touch you with every inch, with every intention, and every lust of smiling eyes, that pass over you when you walk by.

Let my fears fill you up with the love intended to be, just let me, be, next to you, in a storm of our foolishness, numbing our chores for the day.

Lets lose ourselves afloat in static temptations powerlessness, as it pulls our eyes closer to the ends.

Lets no longer resist natural instinct, and merely exist in the same place this day, so that we may long for our tomorrow.

eerie music of the night
creeps rustling through
the falling leaves whistling
the rhythm of the wind

each brittle branch is
tat-tat-tat-tattering a
beat flowing against the
tossed confetti of leaves

natures natural music
is sung every night
but once a year in October
Halloween holds its concert

I woke with a start,

the cracked wooden shutters banging wearily in the wind, hinges groaning, slowly rusting, fully unaware that their time had past, instead they hold on like steadfast soldiers defending a front that no longer matters, in a war that’s already been lost

And, as sleep dissipates, my attention narrows and I -
I realize that I have no wooden shutters, that they have not
been attached to a house in which I’ve slept for more years than
most dogs live in east coast towns with half lit neon signs
O en 24 rs

and yet somehow I heard them rat, tat, tattering like the
shuffling of shoes attached to a woman that needs a wheelchair
but refuses, in favor of a walker, who never leaves the house without
removing all the curlers and putting on her face

None the less the shutters, some time long ago
were torn and left asunder, when the house was removed from
its foundation, by a chipped yellow painted machine,
with enough torque to remove the home in which I grew from existence, leaving a gaping hole that was the basement
where I had my first second base

But there is you, laying beside me, gently breathing in the dark
like the consistent flow of ocean waves, lapping the shore with certitude then slowly disappearing into the vastness of the green blue sea

You are more than I ever could have hoped for, more than I
could have imagined decades ago, when, with a pillow pulled upon my head,
wishing that the wooden shutters attached to my blue green house would drown out the sound adults in family rooms make when
screams are louder than Carson and the studio audience’s laughter

Instead of falling back to sleep, I prefer to listen to your ocean’s breath, the silence from the family room that you and I occupy, while hoping to one day hold you steady long after you need a wheelchair but prefer instead my forearm and a cane

Rattering tattering
slam-dunk battering
precipitous squall
from a louring sky's fall
as if any of us are mattering.

Tommy Carroll Liverpool

Pressures of Atlas ruin the vertebral Column geometry

The circles weight stresses the cylinder to a breaking edge. A cut
Math was wrong

Angular and pathetic is this central pump. It leaks from the head gaskets when you add in ethanol
It squeals out noises under the accumulated atmospheres
CortiZol extends the impellers out till they scrape the walls interior

Finally it's released blown out for keeps
Can't take it back
Neither can take back

The pump withers
Proteins shiver
Brownian heat delivers
Bellowing cold from a cosmos of foam
Spine tattering morbid

A decayed thought process that does nothing but jump
Jumping and bounding conclusions that are meaningless regardless

Atlas gave up and the world fell onto gravitys shoulders

sunshine,
rain crisply tattering
on the gazebo wooden beams
where the moss grows tall
the daisies wither naught
and duo respirations
beating like a thunderous soar
of golden warmth
as two breathing souls
consume the tattering rain
and faint bleak sunshine
under a wooden beam
and moss-grown roof
waiting patiently for the
other to finally
speak

Memories like broken glass
                     fill my heart                    my sensible soul
                                    shards of you
                                                                     remain
                  Tattering this perspective
                                  Leaving a broken person
                                                       behind                        these eyes
                  This Kerouac perception
                                       mounted on confusion
               for                                                      feelings left
                                          undisclosed
            Baffling me like a child
                                                         Thunder and rain my
                    only solace
                                                       dark clouds             my psyche
mutually bound
                                      Like hurricane Galveston
   ripping apart               these thoughts                 these transgressions
                                     mortally comforting
          like cigarettes on Sunday
                                                             reaching forth      
               grasping at straws                                   so they say
                                                 they always say
but do they feel                                                  as I've felt?
                            alone                &                 tempered
                                       as glass
the glum periphery                                engulfing
                                        melting me down                     eating away
       into a pool of nihility
                                                   to harden              to break these chains
feels outdated          unscripted nonsense
                        in the background of my memories            souvenirs
      a setpiece             based on untruths

created        
                 into
                               this
                                          sheer              crystalline              matter

They call
                                                    Glass

it feels like theres a weight on my chest and i never really knew what to do with my hands when they werent folding myself back into place but lately it seems like my seams are tattering and i dont really know how to sew but its not like you do either. you were never a place holder but suddenly there's a space where you arent anymore and i cant really fix it but call me crazy for the crazy glue and im still trying to stick me back to you.

Nothing makes sense anymore
And unnerving of universe agrees
It just said to me, “Stop, give up, adore
Oh do I implore, you to freeze”

Causeways to galactic fracturing
Gnats swarming my eyes for tears
Saving their own life-risked spattering
Been tattering away for years

Finding winced **** gall to ingest
An antidote regarded too unreliable
Shooting up clouds with rocket tests
Only in jest, sounding viable

Criminal patterns keep moving
Through time, history, and now stars
All you can do, to keep on grooving
No snoozing will get you this far

Continued survival has cause
Find it, but with no outer influence
For you have been given no flaws
Find awe in your own existence

A crack in the sky has formed
Rain down solid answers to actuality
Hence, life and why we were born
Unworn from concepts of reality

I'll never be the one
flipped and done
Kiss the sun
Burn your buns
I guess you won

You stabbed my heart
With paper darts
Made me ****
Tree's stripped of bark Apple à la cart

Look down below
Summer's in the snow
Wondering you know
How we just blow
Separately on the go

I was aways opening the door
Backing up on the floor
Stumbling ! Falling !
The fabric of life just tore
Tattering
Who's keeping score ?

Something happened when
I finally allowed myself
to permit you
to see me.

Those eyes of yours, brimming pools,
reached so far deep into my being,
drawing out emotions and thoughts I was afraid to ever show you.
Your nose just breathing space away from mine,
a breath caught in your chest;
It happened—
I let you in.

And I think you recognized it,
for that gleam in your eye let me know
that you’re in it, too.

This is but a bittersweet, diminished thing that we both hold onto,
even after the time when tears filled our eyes.

We’ll never let go, you and I.

“I want to remember you like this,” you said, as you looked at me through fogging lenses.*

And I, you, like this.

It was in that moment we allowed ourselves to gaze upon
a last tattering photograph of when we were whole.
One last kiss,
one last woven catalyst of fingers,
and I held your face in my hands
and whispered, “You are incredible.”

But we just couldn’t be.

Yes, I play our memories
Over in my mind
Letting them dance upon my eyelids
And pull at my heart strings
They won't stop if I plead
They're all you've left me with
Everything I can remember
Every touch
Every glance
Every uttered sound
It's all I have of you
You may not realize
But when you said goodbye
You never really left me
In the same way, I suppose, I may haunt you
Every burning wick
Those flickering flames
Every shift in daylight
The turning of the sun
Every fold in the flag
Stitches tattering slowly
Every drop of rain
Refreshing the life and growth of Earth
They are part of me
And they reek of you
No matter where I go
Or who I'm with
I can't escape your gaze
Can't loose the grip you have on my heart
And after these months of fighting it
I no longer care
I've accepted that you're a part of me
Forever more

It is goodbyes and hellos all wrapped into one.
It is yearning for a moment that is already slipping from your grasp.
It is silence, and yet a fast paced symphony,
humming tunes to your scattered mind.
It is uncertain,
and unreliable.
A permanent tattoo on life;a standstill.
A broken clock.
Free from seconds ticking away,
free from years tattering a body.
But even though the flesh will remain untouched,
the soul will undoubtedly,
show worn.
No immorality can keep it,
from showing how the years have aged it.

Sometimes I feel like I can run
Run miles away from reality by my shadow still follows
But my heart beats fast like a drum
Wishing the memories of you would burn down to ashes
Only to creep back minute after minute, hour after hour
Of those crazy days we had sleepless nights chatting
Trying to sleep but all was in vain
Highlighting the feelings we had for each other

But all is a chronicle
I guess I lost everything for nothing
It feels awful by this feeling
A feeling that silences the beauty of the past and revives the present
Tattering the hopes and only crushing me to the ground
Weak and feeble, left for the vultures to devour
But still the resonant words of you still whisper to my ears like a passing wind

I try to come into existence with reality,you're gone
But it's as hard as cracking a nut
Trying to flee my convicted mind
Trying to create a new world deemed feet for me
The sky's blue,I can't hold on ,but I'll try

The world does not fit our make believe
We curse a broken world
Our teaming tender tended mental constructs
Ribbons of psyche tattering
In cyclonic winds resistance generated
Thrash the i ****** delirious
We grasp the tumorous slimy glob
As god thought heaven sent me self
Earnestly religiously unknowingly
Crying children crave the honeyed razor blade
Voices screeching tears falling heart anguished
Living breathing hells of thought

A glimpse behind the mask,
a catching of the tongue.
The faces waiting in the shadows,
I know,
I've seen them before.

The breaking of a new day,
the makeshift of the moment.
A not-so-subtle desire,
an urge,
to discover the self.

A memory now,
disconnect me from my emotion.
How’d I fail to see through this disguise?
The layers of compassion
hidden
within those focus-wearied eyes.

A whisper,
an acknowledgement.
A tattering of delusions,
the picking up of ruins.
How much was it worth to learn what could have been known
Any other way?

The seconds turned into minutes,
the minutes became miles,
My breath tired,
it tried to keep up.

Calmness.
Now.
The centre of peace.
The questions and their answers
subsided,
a beckoning of quietness and solitude.

Let me take you
Put your hand in mine: in all softness and frankness:
And let us dance
Spin and flurry through a world of white, lavender, gorgeous scarlet, and vigorous cerulean-
The wind our friend, our toes like feathers

Prancing across earth
Held to each other only
by our very fingertips
Never afraid of letting
go

We’re in a forest of orange and bright gold in the sky
Floating toes brushing only air
Soft leaves shroud our heads
we’re blind to everything else
Your lips curl in pure joy, they spill staccato laughter
music to my ears
In this moment, in this breath, we are
Nothing else.
Saw the sun and the moon one and the same
Eclipses of light spanning the entire ocean
It was a world above heaven
and

I saw
you
Hair flying- your locks heavy with shadow and glimmering with light
Face carved from the most
precious
Of nature’s birth and bloom
My eyes tracing your steady legs and gentle hands- to rest on
yours-
your time-stopping; shattering; heartbreakingly beautiful
eyes.


We took off
To a world we had never seen; of new colors and jumping sounds and daunting heights and terrifying speeds-
Look at all this sky! Look at all our freedom! Why search for ground if we weren’t ever to land?
We could go anywhere in the universe- you and I! All of this boundless, endless space!
Let us wrack and demolished to shards, those chains that bound us to the ground-
and let us fly free, free, free-
Just you and I-
flying-


we are free




The sky is iridescent above the clouds
before our clear gazes
I see your face
as beautiful
as pure
as I remember it;
as our hair
tangles in the wind;
and our essence becomes
one-


and…


    follow me, my dear.

Follow me as we


                                     f
                                      a
                       ­                 l  
                                         l


softly tattering into pieces and slivers and smudges
devastating
unravel into a thousand petals
a flurry of pieces that used to be ourselves,
resting on the ground like fallen feathers----
-

never
to
come back
again





our wings have died

our legs have crumbled

and my fingers have gone,

i can no longer see or feel your

beautiful, beautiful face or hair or hands





Ah, can you feel it?          
Can you feel the darkness?
It’s closing in, it’s swallowing us whole,
The point of no return with no choice but to end
Darkness has chased us in
Only black oblivion waits






but i won’t forget

not in my last moments of existence

and  not to the death of my sentient memory

i will

never

forget you

your laugh

your flying hair

your sparkling eyes



even if all ends

even if


i die.




























(do you regret it, my dear?

Sometimes I feel like I can run
Run miles away from reality by my shadow still follows
But my heart beats fast like a drum
Wishing the memories of you would burn down to ashes
Only to creep back minute after minute, hour after hour
Of those crazy days we had sleepless nights chatting
Trying to sleep but all was in vain
Highlighting the feelings we had for each other

But all is a chronicle
I guess I lost everything for nothing
It feels awful by this feeling
A feeling that silences the beauty of the past and revives the present
Tattering the hopes and only crushing me to the ground
Weak and feeble, left for the vultures to devour
But still the resonant words of you still whisper to my ears like a passing wind

I try to come into existence with reality,you're gone
But it's as hard as cracking a nut
Trying to flee my convicted mind
Trying to create a new world deemed feet for me
The sky's blue,I can't hold on ,but I'll try

petrichor is to VX
as temporary is to eternity
for a long sleep
is considered 'la petit mort'

let it pour down the porcelain
stitching
of thy hollow carcass


cold, shivering,
along with
the music of my teeth,
tattering

to calm is to wait for precipitation.

and I want it so bad.